Intermediate servers that forward all requests and responses for a specific service (e.g. web access), and often perform caching as well. These are used for five main purposes:
(1) To cut down on total bandwidth and thus speed up the network overall
(2) To increase individual privacy
(3) To implement "censorware" such as Bess
(4) To get around "censorware"
(5) To log the activities of users
Presentations and surveys describing the uses of proxy servers (free and commercial) to solve library networking problems such as speed and filtering. http://www.pandc.org/proxy/
Surf the Internet anonymously and privately, leaving no traceable evidence behind. Proxy server which downloads the webpage requested and then displays the web page through an encrypted URL. http://www.genericsurf.com/
CECID (and its client FLACCID) are anonymisers that remove tracable information and bounce a request off several other clients in a decentralized P2P anonymisation network. http://cecid.sourceforge.net/